For Josh Beckett, the swagger never left. The finish on the fastball might have taken a hiatus, but the pitcher had no inclination that he wouldn't find ways to dominate the bat-toting opposition standing 60 feet, six inches away.

"I believe that every time," Beckett explained. "I go into every one of my starts thinking like that. That's the kind of guy I want to be. That's what I'm trying to do. The largest part of it is executing it."

Saturday, the attitude continued to be more than just a belief. It remained a reality.

Beckett did it again, exhibiting utter dominance in his start. This time it was a seven-inning outing against the Blue Jays that resulted in the righty allowing just three hits and one run while striking out nine in what turned out to be a 4-1 win for the Red Sox at Fenway Park. Coupled with his eight innings of shutout ball against the Yankees last Sunday, the 30-year-old has gone back-to-back starts in which he held his opponents to three or fewer hits while striking out 10 or more for the first time in his career.

Beckett is back, and the return is more than just the kind of numbers which has him currently carrying a 1.80 ERA after three starts. It is the reemergence of the bad-to-the-bone staff ace that some predicted had permanently left the building.

"Now that he's healthy, he's building that confidence again," said Beckett's personal trainer and lifelong friend Randon Hayes. "He has that aura about him again that 'I can go out there every five days and get it done.' The last game and this game I don't know if he can pitch much better."

Hayes isn't alone in welcoming back the image so many had come to expect whenever Beckett took the mound.

"If anything he's been a little more positive," said Red Sox reliever Daniel Bard. "I think last year he got caught up with some negative thinking, which is human nature. We all do it. It's a bad habit to get into, I think he knew that, knows that. I just see him talking more positive when it comes to baseball stuff. I think for him it was a big thing, that game against the Yankees. He just proved to himself he can still be that pitcher he was in '07 and '09. He didn't lose any stuff, he didn't lose any ability, and I think the biggest person that needed to believe that was him."

For Red Sox manager Terry Francona, the signs were simple.

"He's always been the leader of the staff," Francona noted. "I know he didn't pitch Opening Day, but guys look up to him and he kind of has that, when he's going good, I don't know if it's a persona or swagger. I don't know how you want to say it, but he gives our ballclub a lot of confidence."

And when is the real Beckett officially in attendance?

"When he's a smart aleck, that's good," Francona said. "We'll see how he is tomorrow."

The presence Beckett is currently portraying hasn't arrived by accident. While many doubted that the 2010 downturn was an aberration, the pitcher had a plan, one that started with Hayes.

The trainer immediately saw a difference in his buddy/client right away while beginning their training in the vicinity of San Antonio. The motivation of putting a season that included a 6-6 mark with a 5.78 ERA in the rear-view wasn't hard to uncover.

"He's Josh. He wants to be on top. He wants to win. I just sensed he was thinking, 'We have to get back on top again,'" Hayes said. "You could just tell throughout the offseason as he got a little leaner, and a little more in shape, he could finish exercises that at the beginning that were difficult and his confidence had gotten better. By the time spring training started he was ready to go, and he was probably excited as anybody to get the season started after what happened last year.

"I think a lot of that had to do with the fact he was healthy and he is strong. Last year, every five days it was just a stretch to go out there and make a start. It was hard to have that swagger."

The work was centered around a new approach, one which would make the injuries to his back and shoulder a thing of the past. New tactics and techniques were in play.

"He's always been strong, but the thing we really tried to focus on just because of the injuries that he had was the stabilization stuff," Hayes explained. "Some of it was probably my fault. He had some success and we had stuck with the same type of rotation. But this year he said, 'I don't want to do the same thing.' It was time for some fresh stuff.

"It was stuff I could have done in the past, but we just hadn't. We did a lot of extra stuff this year, a lot of stability stuff, really trying to work everything with his core so he could continue his strength and conditioning stuff throughout the season and hopefully not have any issues with it. He made a comment to me a month into the offseason, saying, 'Man, even without working out, just walking around, I feel like I have a better base on me now.' When he said that, I was like, 'Good! He said that just walking around that he felt a lot more stable.' At that point I knew he was ready for spring training and if he could just it through it healthy he was going to be good again."

By the time the team broke camp in Fort Myers, heading for the season opener in Texas, Beckett was healthy, and carrying the mind-set he had envisioned when the offseason process began. The giddy-up to the heater was back, as was refined change-up has become a pitch Beckett he's throwing more than the usual No. 2 pitch, his curveball.

Sure, there may have been some naysayers after watching Beckett weave his way through spring training. The lack of immediate answers through the month of March concerned some. 

But it was all part of Beckett's plan, one which has led the starter back to some familiar heights.

The old Josh Beckett is back (although he insists that pitcher never really left in the first place). Saturday's game, and post-game press conference, just reaffirmed it.

"Are we going to just keep asking questions about last year? How many starts do we have to go before we forget last year," Beckett said tersely after his second win of the season. "I know I stunk last year. Maybe we can move forward a little bit.”

Done.